


I'm in Love With The World, Through The Eyes of a [Boy]

by Drippin_w_alchemy



Series: Either/Or [10]
Category: Love Simon (2018), Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda - Becky Albertalli
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon Gay Character, Canon Gay Relationship, College, Fluff, Gay, Gay Male Character, M/M, Pining, Reunion, Thanksgiving Break, Trains
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-08
Updated: 2018-05-08
Packaged: 2019-05-03 22:08:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14578677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Drippin_w_alchemy/pseuds/Drippin_w_alchemy
Summary: “Simon,” Bram says, “I never left.”Simon and Bram reunite at a train station after months away at college without one another.Elliott Smith - Say Yes:YouTube





	I'm in Love With The World, Through The Eyes of a [Boy]

**Author's Note:**

> This is my last entry into the Either/Or Series! I hope you like it, and will return at a later date to make it canon compliant with Leah on the Offbeat. Until then thank you so much for reading!

I’m waiting at the Peachtree City station and I don’t know how long you’re supposed to wait for a train to arrive before you start to wonder if it’s late or lost. I suppose trains can’t get lost, I mean it has to be stuck somewhere between two points right? I guess Bram must be stuck, or trapped or somehow I’m being punk’d and he’s not even coming home. I don’t think Bram would do that he was never that into Ashton Kutcher, he’s too conventional looking.

I’m sitting on a bench and there’s roughly forty or fifty people milling about. I’ve never taken a train anywhere, not in Georgia. Flights home for Thanksgiving were astronomically expensive for Bram so he bought a train ticket from Greensboro and hitched a ride with a friend. I think he made it OK, I mean at least he said he did. He had been texting me updates on all the Dementors he’s run into since the train left North Carolina. He was disappointed there was no sweets trolley but who can blame him for that one. Except now I haven’t heard from him for an hour and he was supposed to get in tonight so we could have Tuesday together in my dorm before his parents expect him at home on Wednesday for the rest of break. Sometimes I can convince Bram Greenfeld to break the rules.

Convince is a strong word I suppose. Bram and I haven’t seen each other since we dropped him off in August. He was going to come home in October but college is a lot more expensive and time consuming than the movies make it seem. When I suggested we could have an extra night together he practically dropped his phone mid facetime. I assume that’s a good thing, I mean, a part of me thought maybe he wanted to see me before all the festivities of the holiday so we could “talk” which of course would be code for “We gave long distance a shot Simon let’s just be friends who have beautifully detailed pencil drawings of each other framed at their desks.”

That’s a totally normal thing people do when they come home from college I bet.

I have to put my phone away, I keep nervously scrolling through my twitter looking for train derailments and earthquakes that could send a boy from North Carolina flying from a train car into nothing because WHERE IS HE IT’S ALMOST THIRTY MINUTES PAST DUE NOW.

I am managing my anxiety completely fine, I tell myself. The thing is I’m excited and nervous to see Bram, because what if he thinks I’ve changed? What if I say something new or strange I picked up in one of my classes or in my dorm and he thinks I’m leaving him in behind? He could get off the train and have a new haircut or an earring (which I know he doesn’t because we Skyped yesterday but it’s been like 16 hours you never know). These are what my mom calls intrusive thoughts. 

I start to look around the train station, a group of people gathering their bags disappears behind a pillar and for a minute I wonder if platform 9 ¾ is actually in use, like TSA precheck times a thousand. Then I realize there’s a set of stairs out of my line of sight. One day wizarding world, one day.

It’s not like I’m dreading this reunion or anything. We’ve been talking about this and dreaming about this and maybe sometimes when our roommates are out,  _sexting_ about this from time to time. I guess a lot of what I had invested emotionally in preparing for our October weekend had to all be pushed to now. Break comes with these nostalgic thoughts and progressive feelings. Like Bram and I have evolved and been placed into dioramas from the wrong era. Slightly familiar but the atmospheric concentration might not support us like it used to. Maybe I’m overthinking this. When we started college Bram compared my text thread to him like reading a William Faulkner novel (which I then had to google because I have yet to give in to his love for old white man shiterature). There’s just a lot on my mind I suppose and a public transit hub isn’t exactly where I come to meditate.

A train is finally pulling into the station but I’m pretty sure it came from the wrong direction. There’s an overhead announcement about passengers boarding for Florida and I suppose most of the people here are heading south for the holiday. I text Bram and ask if he’s been held up. Then I tell him to get out and walk and follow the tracks they’ll lead right to me. I suppose he probably knows that though.

I think back to when Summer was ending, and even further back to when it was starting. When I had an idea that there was only forward and backward. Now I know that we sort of flip between the two and move side to side from time. I feel like since October, Bram and I have been standing still. Pacing around each other along some invisible line in the sand that prevents us from going any one direction in time together. Partly that’s me, I think I don’t want to move forward because it opens up to many new avenues. So I kick my heels in, one new thing at a time.

It’s 8:45 now, Bram was supposed to be here at eight so I call him but his phone goes straight to voicemail. So his phone is dead, or the train is in a collapsed tunnel in a mountain somewhere. I’m seventy five percent sure it’s the former.

I wish I hadn’t worn my Emory sweatshirt. Bram is going to see it and think he’s all I ever think about and that I don’t care about school or friends or my future. I just care about paralleling him. I wish I had savored it some more. I wore it for a week after we dropped him off, then my mom said something so I just started keeping it next to me in my room but even by the time I started school it had started to smell like me and him, and then just me. I still can’t bring myself to wash it. Hopefully he doesn’t know that, usually I take it off before we Skype so he doesn't worry. Maybe he wouldn’t worry, maybe he would think it’s weird, think I’m weird.

Finally at 9:01 a train pulls and people start to step off of it, grabbing luggage and hurrying to meet the crowd of people in the parking lot that have grown over the last hour. I get off my bench and make one more look at my imaginary platform 9 ¾ before I make my way to the arrivals area. I tug at the hem of my sweatshirt and try to act coy, like it’s not a big deal that I’ve been here for over an hour and can’t get a hold of my boyfriend and I don’t know if my patronus really is a koala or not but I really don’t want to add that to my list of things to figure out tonight.

Then I see some curls bob behind a slow moving woman who is possibly carrying an entire rotisserie chicken in a crock pot and I know exactly where to position myself so Bram can see me. He steps off the train and has this well traveled weariness to him, not like I do when I go to the airport and I have to muster all my energy just to function as a human but someone who travels professionally, knowing their will be someone waiting for him at his destination ready to snap his photo. I guess he knew I would be waiting. I guess it’s safe to assume he looks cute for me.

I side step people flooding out of the train to maintain my eye contact with him and I can tell he’s got some kick in his step. He’s trying to politely get through the crowd without running or pushing or disturbing anyone around him just like Bram would. Leave it to him to follow this magnetic draw to me and completely maintain his composure. I practically trip over a dog crate trying to stop myself from running into his arms.

Finally there’s a break in the crowd and I just lunge. I fall short a little, I basically stumble a few feet, teeter on crashing into a teenager, pivot and find Bram. I crash into him, full on Harry and Ron in the Chamber of Secrets crash into him and we’re on the ground. Luckily Bram was used to slowing down a lot of inertia quick from Soccer and finds a way to simultaneously deal with me smashing into him while gracefully finding a way to get his knee to the ground. He holds me in a hug and I bury my head in his shoulder. Maybe I should kiss him, I never know what to do in public in Georgia. Usually I let him lead.

“Hi” Bram says.

“Hi”

“The train was late getting into Atlanta, and I’m sure you already know my phone died.”

“It’s better than being trapped in a tunnel somewhere.”

“What?”

“Nothing,” I say, “I’m glad you made it.”

I lift myself up to my feet and grab Bram’s hand to pull him up. His arms brushes down my back as he stands.

“So it’s somewhat of a drive and we have to park somewhere weird cause I don’t have campus parking yet.” I say, picking up his bag and slinging it over my shoulder. “Are you hungry? Should we get something to eat? I had the worst day in Composition, my professor wants me to completely restructure this essay I am supposed to have finished by after break.” I realize Bram isn’t beside me and turn around to see him about ten feet behind me where we crashed into each other.

“Uhhhhh” I say, “Are you spending break here? Did someone glue your feet to the floor with a charm?”

“Simon you haven’t said anything about my sweatshirt.” Bram says.

I don’t know why I would say anything about what he’s wearing, it’s just a blue sweatshirt, it’s the same blue sweatshirt he always wears. Crisp and clean and perfectly blue, perfectly Bram. Except it’s not, or at least, it looks different, slightly darker. I take a few steps closer to him and I realize there’s an insignia on the chest that isn’t usually there, and then I realize it says Emory.

“I’m confused, did Leah send you an Emory sweatshirt?” I say. “We already have so much college stuff between the two of us, plus we’re not going to any sporting stuff over break everyone is off campus for the semester.” Did he buy himself his own sweatshirt because he was annoyed at the thought of wearing mine again? Leah would have mentioned that to me, told me to back off and not smother him or something macabre like that.

“No Simon, it’s my sweatshirt. I brought it home, I figured you could wear it over break for me so I had something to tide me over until I’m back for real in December.”

What does he mean back for real? Is he not staying on campus with me tonight? Was this really all a joke, is he just using me for a ride back to Shady Creek? I mean I knew we couldn’t make October work but I thought we were just being responsible saving our money and it finally felt like this distance thing was OK, was something we had found a rhythm for. For the time being. Maybe that time had run out.

“For real? Bram are you on a reality show? What’s going on, you’re not connecting to some other train going anywhere nonsense are you?” I really can’t think in a train station.

I realize no one’s on the platform anymore, maybe I just can’t think around Bram.

“Simon, I’m home for break and I want you to wear my new sweatshirt so I can bring some of you back to North Carolina with me before finals.” Bram says, he’s set his backpack down now. “After all, boyfriends are supposed to rep each other’s schools aren’t they?”

What is he talking about I have a UNC T-shirt, I literally have it balled up in my pillow case right this second.

He’s just looking at me and I’m looking at him and I don’t know how long this goes on for before something in me clicks and I feel the weight of his suitcase and realize it’s massive for someone home for the weekend. Then I realize Bram is giving me this soft look and simultaneously telling me he still believes in words like forever and it all starts to wash over me. I take a step towards him.

“You’re...You have an Emory sweatshirt on and you’re....”

“Before you say anything, I don’t like being far away from my family, and Emory has a great writing program and I know it’s only been a few months but I’m sure of this.”

Bram must not know me at all if he thinks I’m going to argue with him.

“I debated how to tell you, or bring it up because I didn’t want to get your hopes up if I chickened out.” He goes on. “But I’m sure of this, and I’m sure of you and before you can ask, yes I did this for you Simon, above all that other nonsense I did this for you.”

There are a few moments in my life where I can flashbulb remember being truly happy. The day we got Bieber, when Bram and I kissed for the first time in his car in the rain, dancing together at prom. This makes all of those look like candles in the dark, this is a star going super nova.

I dive at home, I hear his suitcase clatter to floor and soon after we hit the linoleum. I kiss him all over and hug him and just let tears stream down my face.

“I can’t believe you’re coming back to me.” I say. I realize I’m snotting all over his new sweatshirt but I don’t care. He wanted me to break it in for him, this is my version of that.

“Simon,” Bram says, “I never left.”

And he kisses me back. Bram pulls me over the line with him, I dig my feet in and he just gets stronger for the both of us. There are many ways forward and I’ll never be able to see them all. Bram sees me in all of his tomorrows and at the very least, he’s always been mine.


End file.
